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Just another Northwest Florida Daily News site

60 years ago – 1957 Dr. William W. Thompson was set to join White-Wilson Clinic on Brooks Street in Fort Walton Beach on Feb. 1. TNT Motors on Eglin Parkway in Fort Walton Beach was advertising an Oldsmobile Golden Rocket 88 with a 4-barrel carburetor and custom trim for $2,733.47. 35 years ago – 1982 Two people were arrested and about 5 pounds of Lebanese hashish, a potent hemp derivative, was seized by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. 20 years… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 Destin Community Center board members began preliminary work in trying to determine what areas in and near Destin were “uninhabitable” in order to draw lines for incorporation. A Tallahassee lawyer gave notice that Walton County would be sued over its refusal to maintain dirt roads in the Oakwood Hills subdivision. 20 years ago – 1997 For the third time in less than a year, illegal Mexican workers were caught working at Eglin Air Force Base.… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 Okaloosa-Walton Junior College student Scott Dozier was waiting for a call from his father, Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier, who had been rescued from his Red Brigade kidnappers after 42 days of captivity. The “Save the Bookmobile” campaign was staging a Fashion, Follies and Floor Show at Crestview High School. 20 years ago – 1997 A University of Michigan study ranked Fort Walton Beach the seventh most racially integrated municipality in the country, based on… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 A school bus driver was stabbed repeatedly with a broken beer bottle and a 15-year-old Meigs Junior High School student was charged in connection with the attack. 20 years ago – 1997 More than 20 incidents of forged prescriptions for muscle relaxers, painkillers and sedatives had been reported to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. 10 years ago – 2007 Mike Goodchild and Bruce Ward, agents with the Walton County extension of the University of Florida… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 Fort Walton Beach councilmen asked the city attorney to research court-tested obscenity laws the city could use in getting some downtown nightspots to clean up their strip shows. Sheriff Larry Gilbert asked the Okaloosa County Commission for a piece of land that could be farmed by jail inmates. 20 years ago – 1997 Florida Statute 775.21, The Public Safety Information Act of 1997, specifically said the sexual-predator list was a public record and that state… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 The executive committee of the West Florida Regional Planning Council agreed to conduct a study to determine how offshore oil and gas drilling would affect the Panhandle. In response to the cold weather, the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services began a “heating crisis program” to aid low-income residents whose homes were without heat. 20 years ago – 1997 There were numerous funnel-cloud sightings in Okaloosa County, but there were no reports of touchdowns.… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 The labor department reported that in 1980, the average salary in the Fort Walton Beach metropolitan area rose to $11,181. A two-bedroom unfurnished apartment in Destin was advertised for $260 per month. 20 years ago – 1997 A line of severe thunderstorms roared through parts of Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties, spawning at least one tornado, but left the area relatively intact. Hurlburt Field’s Maj. Gen. James Hobson Jr. was presented with the Order… Read More »

60 years ago – 1957 Oscar Bengston, former constable and law enforcement officer in the area for 40 years, was appointed special investigator for the Fort Walton Beach Police Department. Sixty Playground News subscribers were getting deliveries by boat around Cinco Bayou. 35 years ago – 1982 The Eglin Air Force Base flight line was chosen as a test site for an anti-terrorist security program. 20 years ago – 1997 A woman accused of helping to mastermind the attempted kidnapping… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 James Card was convicted of first-degree murder for the June 3, 1981, slaying of Panama City Western Union clerk Janis Franklin. The trial was held in Crestview due to pretrial publicity in Bay County. Col. Jack R. Petry became commander of Eglin Air Force Base’s 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing. 20 years ago – 1997 The Navarre Beach Leaseholders and Residents Association hired a Tallahassee attorney to investigate whether future high-rises could be prevented. A divided… Read More »

35 years ago – 1982 A federal judge ruled that a Destin environmental group had no standing to intervene in a Holiday Isle ownership quarrel between beachfront developers and the state. The Florida Trappers Association proposed to establish a fox-hunting season. 20 years ago – 1997 Six men entered a home in Santa Rosa County and beat and robbed two men at gunpoint. After 54 years, the Okaloosa County NAACP branch finally had a place to call its own on… Read More »

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